Lesser Creatures of the Garden

Four toads’ prowl and prey in the gardens in my front and back yard.  I never see them hiding under a leaf or in the shadow of a stone until I am engaged in the curse of Adam, keeping the weeds at bay from my flowers and tomatoes.  The toads are a welcome sight as they scurry out of my way and sight, for they have been lying in wait for an insect to wander within in tongue length.

The creation Psalm, 104:24, extols the Lord, “O Lord, how manifold are your works!  In wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.”

Stones form a border around my gardens.  Most were gathered rock piles on the farm of my youth in northwestern Wisconsin and some dug out of a wall of gravel.  These granite stones   lay in place since being tumbled and bulldozed by the last glacier some 10,000 year ago.  It took thousands years for the mile thick ice giant to shove them south, from perhaps the future site of Lake Superior 100 miles to the north.  I hauled them 600 miles south in less than 24 hours.

Stones too are a part of God’s good creation, though when we were out picking them off the fields every spring that was not foremost in our minds.  Even the stones are under God’s authority.  John the Baptist told his audience, “God is able from these stones to raise up children of Abraham.”  And Jesus admonished his critics on >Palm Sunday, “If these (disciples) were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

Under many of the stones around my garden patches live ant empires who are busily going about their business; thrown into a frenzy of activity when a giant moves their planet as I do from time to time.  Proverbs uses the ant to spur the lazy to get off the couch, “Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, be wise.”

There is much to learn of God and his ways as we prepare to leave the garden for another year.